Saturday, November 15, 2014

Cross Ange Episode 7

Episode 7 begins with Salia detailing her recent combat sortie Captain's Log style, and as we get some flashback scenes to the combat action, Salia notes Ange ignored orders. The animation officially starts with Ange kicking ass all by herself, which Salia reluctantly notes.

Later, as they are about to leave the combat bay, Rosalie is pissed at Ange because she keeps getting all the money (remember, they get paid on commission), and Ange immediately hands her some cash and asks if she wants more.

This pisses Rosalie off, but Ersha restrains her as Salia tells Ange she's not happy Ange doesn't understand the meaning of teamwork. Ange coolly retorts she is killing DRAGONS and doing it well, and if Salia really is pissed, she can either fine or execute her, and she walks away on that note.

Later, as Salia continues typing up her after action review, she notes Ange's continued refusal to work with the team may force her not to pilot the Vilkiss due to disciplinary issues.

After the opening, in Jill's office, Jasmine reads off a recon report from Tusk, of all people, and the fact he's alive is mildly surprising to everyone involved, Jill especially. As Mei alludes to the possibility of Ange and Tusk.....well, you get the idea (as well as mentions of him having repaired the Vilkiss), Jill tells Jasmine to get back into contact with Tusk PDQ.

Before we go on, it seems Tusk is both known to the higher echelons of the Norma at the Arzenal penal battalion (Jill especially) and works for them as an unofficial recon guy.

Anyway, Jill then turns to the matter of Salia wanting Ange grounded due to her lack of teamwork, and Jill basically tells Salia "you have the power to pull rank, just do it already".

The next day, we get a scene with Emma all 0_0 at the idea of Momoka being Ange's servant (remember, Norma are subhumans, so this is like a black guy having a white man as a slave in the pre-Civil War South), so Emma immediately has a logic bomb moment as she recites the party line about why Norma are subhuman assholes, which Ange blows off, and Emma tries to appeal to Momoka, who doesn't care about Ange being a Norma, which causes Emma to give up before her brain blows a fuse.

Meanwhile, at Vivian, Ersha, and Salia's table, Vivian is pleased at the previous scene, Ersha mentions a festival is coming up and she wants to do something special for the kids, and Salia is ruminating over how to pull rank on Ange.

Again, brief pause here, but it's obvious Salia's professionalism and her personal jealousy are having a war here, and she obviously wants to do the right thing professional despite her personal jealousy, and while she does have an arguable case for reprimanding Ange for lack of teamwork, she know arbitrarily screwing over Ange would just be a dick move based on pure spite, so she wants more justification before pulling rank.

Hilda shows up to pour gas on the fire by pointing out Ange could buy her way out of any punishment and that Ange most likely wouldn't give a shit about any punishment, and when Salia realizes the truth in this, Hilda goads her by attempting to manipulate Salia's jealousy by saying Ange holds her in contempt and that when Zola was around, this would have never happened.

Hilda then oversteps by asking if she can take over Salia's position, to which Salia immediately gets up and leaves. Later, Salia is still pissed, thinking about how she was drafted into her current job, hen we get to see Ange telling Momoka as they enter Jasmine's mall that she wants to buy her some actual sleepwear.

It's at this point Salia buys herself something special, and as Ange and Momoka go to try on the new pajamas, we find out Salia is into Magical Girl cosplay (which she considers stress relief, weirdly enough).

And that's when we cut to Ange telling Jasmine the last dressing room is in use, Jasmine facepalms, and Salia realizes her cosplay fetish was just discovered by the last person she wanted to see it, and she has a vision of Hilda and her toadies laughing their asses off and Jill with a "WTF is this shit?" look on her face.

A scene later, as Ange is bathing with Momoka assisting, Salia snaps and tries to stab Ange (who barely blocks the blade with her bath bucket), who is understandably shocked, not realizing Salia flipped out pretty bad over having her cosplay fetish discovered. Ange figures it out pretty quick, and as she keeps parrying the hits, she tells Salia to calm down, she ain't saying anything, and she has no reason to care.

Salia's rage bubbles over at this moment, and as the knife and the bath bucket go flying, she grabs Ange's shoulders and screams at the still naked Ange about how she's cheesed off over Ange's lack of teamwork, and Ange retorts about how they once tried to take her out, then with a knee to the gut and a shoulder toss later, Salia goes flying into the water.

As Salia gets out, it seems her outfit was deftly removed by Ange, and as Salia realizes she just got literally combat stripped, Ange tells Salia why she fights alone.

Basically, Salia does squat to stop anyone from giving her grief, so Ange refuses to work with someone who enables assholes like Hilda in their attempts to kill her.

This leads to a catfight in the bath, with Salia melting down (especially after accidentally getting handful of Ange's boob during the fight, realizing Ange is even more busty than her, on top of basically being casually better in most other categories).

Vivan and Ersha walk in on the fight, Momoka pleads with them to get Ange to calm down, and Ersha instead decides to egg things on a little for the lulz, and throws Salia and Ange bath brushes while her and Vivan drag the still worried Momoka out of there while Salia and Ange continue slapfighting and insulting each other's bust size (and lack thereof).

Later, Emma is facepalming hard as she dresses down Salia and Ange for fighting, and even Jill is a little exasperated at how Salia threw her professionalism out the window. Emma decides to force both Ange and Salia to write fifty pages of "I shall not have retarded slapfights", despite Ange wondering why she has to do so as well since Salia started things, sneezing as the scene changes to the next morning, where Momoka delivers her breakfast, tells Ange she finished the essay for her, and discovers Ange has one hell of a fever.

Salia in a scene later is explaining to the other pilots Ange is out of the action until she recovers, and Hilda and crew all all smug over how you lose a hefty amount of cash each day you are not combat capable.

A day later, we get more Salia monolouging about how training is going well, a scene of Ange still in bed, then we cut to the lesbian love shack where Rosalie and Chris are going down on Hilda, and as the lesbian love fest continues, Hilda's face is basically Smug.JPEG.

A day later, Salia is asking Mei about the status of Vilkiss, and Mei admits it's a pain to repair since Ange is the pilot (understandable, given Ange's berserker tendencies), and as Mei admits she's somewhat technopathic and can sense Ange goes all batshit in the Vilkiss to keep anyone from dying, and when Salia calls BS on this, Mei points out they have had ZERO casualties since Ange became the Vilkiss main pilot, a fact Salia is forced to accept.

A scene later, as she looks over her previous reports, sure enough, every day since the Vilkiss became Ange's machine, there have been zero casualties. She tries to convince herself it's a massive coincidence, and that's when the combat alarm goes off.

As they prepare to liftoff, Salia tells everyone that since Ange is down, they will concentrate their fire to make up for the Vikiss not being with them. As they leave, we cut to Momoka barring Ange from trying to leave, since Ange is still unwell, but Ange tells Momoka it costs money to keep Momoka and herself fed, then collapses.

We cut back to Salia's squad closing in on DRAGONs about to exit a dimensional gate, and as they do, one of them is a massive monster none of them have seen before, which they call a "virgin" (slang for a type of dragon they have never fought before). Also, we find out just gathering into on "virgins" is worth a really hefty bankroll, so Hilda and her toadies are really excited about kicking its ass.

Salia then does the sensible thing and calls for backup, which Hilda protests by using the "Zola never had to worry about that" goad again, then they break formation and go after the massive "virgin" while Vivian and Ersha remain with Salia to fight the rest.

Hilda deduces its belly it where it's weak, but as she and her groupies are about to close in for the kill, Vivian is getting a seriously bad premonition (apparently, when her hair feels tingly, bad shit happens), and that's when the "virgin" reveals it has gravity powers and forces Hilda and company's mechs to hit the ground, frozen in place due to the gravitational field they are now trapped in, and that's when Salia and the others get trapped in the gravity well as well.

Vivian realizes the DRAGON's horns are the source of its gravity powers, so she attempts to destroy them with her new boomerang cutter, but the gravity pull nulls the attack. In fact, the gravity pull is getting strong and its forcing the ground around the gravity well to crater. Vivian tries one last time to counterattack, but is screwed, and Salia realizes they may just have to abandon their machines.

A few hacking coughs over the comm later, and Ange in the Vilkiss shows up, hilariously bundled up over her piloting uniform (and we get a flashback scene where Momoka insisted on Ange looking like she wore everything in the coat closet at once if she really had to go outside),  and even though Ange is still feeling like crap, she says she's gonna kill the DRAGON herself like she usually does.

Salia flips the fuck out and tells Ange that, for once, if she doesn't want to die (since the DRAGON in question is retarded strong), follow orders for once. Ange is feeling too crummy to argue and does so and Salia starts barking orders, and Ange is still kinda woozy and screwing up stuff but is trying to comply.

The DRAGON then cranks up the gravity field to capture the Vilkiss as well, and Ange is so out of it she says "I think I'm falling" in the most deadpan voice ever. Thankfully, turns out Salia positioned Ange so she could use the gravity well to her advantage, and tells Ange to kick the DRAGON like Ange booted her in the bath area.

Scene change later, and Ange has drop kicked one of the horns off the "virgin", which causes it wail in pain as the gravity well ceases. As it does, Salia orders everyone else to kill the DRAGON dead.

Later, back at the base, EVERYONE is holding a huge bankroll (save Ange), over cloud nine and Mei is looking at the busted up Vilkiss with a sigh while Salia thanks Ange for following orders for once. Ange then approaches Salia and holds out her hand asks for some extra money as compensation for how the Vilkiss was broken up thanks to those orders. Salia initially refuses, then Ange whispers in her ear she might just reveal Salia's little hobby, which causes Salia to say she just might withdraw her thanks then.

Regardless, this little bit of comedy over, Salia's professionalism kicks in and she tells the rest of the team Ange did make their victory possible, and then turns to Hilda and her toadies and tells them to quit taking potshots at Ange, then emphasizes they only won when they worked together and that there is a very good reason for that. Everyone but Hilda is down with that, and even Ange agrees.

This prompts Ersha to give Ange a big hug, and her troll tendencies come out as a scene later, everyone throws Ange in the bath again. As Ange wonders what that was for, Ersha says it was to wash away all the bad that happened before, then they all jump in too.

Salia then monologues her latest AAR as she recounts the mission, admits she's let Ange continue to fly the Vilkiss despite her reservations, and as we see the team finally bond (save Hilda), Salia mentions she hopes it will continue until the day of Libertus, which was mentioned all the back in Episode 3.

Me, I have idea what this refers to specifically, hope more info will come to light in later episodes.

Later we cut to Ange grousing about going through hell,  but Momoka is just grateful Ange is feeling better. We then have a WHAM moment as Momoka gets a secret message from Sylvie (Ange's little sister from the first episode), who asks Momoka if she got in touch with Ange, and then we hear her struggling with someone on the other end as the message ends, leaving Ange and Momoka understandably horrified.

Next episode preview looks to be a beach episode, and Salia is the one comedically bitching about how her cosplay habit was exposed, and it looks like we'll get a little drama as well.

Dunno how things are gonna go from here, but I'm looking forward to the next episode.

Also, one final note: It's obvious by now some dark evil secret is being kept fiercely under wraps, and another theory of mine is that the coup d'etat that took place in Episode 1 was done to keep that secret from getting out (Ange being exposed as a Norma seemed to helped the usurpers in maintaining the conspiracy), but it's obvious bad shit is going on back in the former Empire of Misurugi, and I suspect the whole plan to use Norma to keep the NORPs from learning about the DRAGONs is going to come apart in later episodes.

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